Barcelona are lining up a bid for Bolton’s Gary Cahill. The England International is wanted by several top clubs an only just missed out on a big money transfer before the recent transfer window closed. However Bolton may reject any bids which they feel will not benefit the club in the long term and are likely to turn down a relatively low cash offer of £5 million.

A deal involving a swap for Carles Puyal may be more tempting to both parties. Puyal is currently injured and his future with Barcelona could be uncertain as new recruits will be brought in as cover. However, taking a chance on Puyal would be a risk worth taking for Bolton who are set to lose Cahill on a free anyway in Summer 2012.

Inside information man and football reporter, Alan Nixon, has tweeted that the deal is complete and he also seems to think there is a winger also ready to sign for the trotters. The Bolton New’s Marc Iles said he is waiting for confirmation of the deal but from what we can gather the deal is now done and dusted.

NGog scored 19 times in 95 appearances for Liverpool and will inject some much needed pace into Wanderers front line.

Meanwhile Bolton are still looking to offload, star defender, Gary Cahill to Spurs.

Any thoughts that Bolton will sign any more loan players from Man City are rubbish as clubs are only allowed to loan one player from a rival club in the Premier League. (Pretty sure about that)

Bolton Wanderers have finally secured a season loan (well for the rest of the season) of Manchester City’s Dedryck Boyata. The news was announced a short time ago on the official Manchester City website.

Boyata has been on Bolton’s radar for some time and has chosen to spend the rest of the season with the trotters after finding his chances at the Etihad limited. Boyata is just 20 years old but is rated very highly by most. The Belgian defender has also appeared for his country at International level.

The youngster is a flexible player who can play all across the back four which is great news for Bolton after losing yet another defender through injury on Wednesday (Alonso).

Coyle was delighted to sign Boyata, he said: “I am delighted that we have completed the loan deal for Dedryck, because there was interest from a number of other clubs in taking him on loan.

“He is a tremendous addition to the squad and his versatility means he can operate at centre-half and full-back.

“He has got pace and power and is a flexible and dynamic player.”

The move could be just in time to see Cahill leave Bolton for Arsenal if Wenger feels he wants to raise his purported £6 million offer which was rejected earlier this week.

It’s all kicking off on the Cahill front as Arsenal have an offer rejected.

The bid was reported in the press as a £6 million bid for Bolton’s Gary Cahill. Bolton immediately turned down the bid and Coyle said “derisory doesn’t even cover it.” Wenger was quoted as saying that the figure mentioned in the press was not the true amount of the bid saying “it’s below what we spoke about.”

Then it came out on twitter that Phil Gartside had slammed Wenger over the cut price offer for the England International. Gartside’s words “piss off Wenger” were quickly retracted and removed from the site but not before eagle eyed journo’s and football fans had spotted it!

(Update: Gartside retweeted: ‘Arsenal are you taking the piss 6 million for Garry Cahill f*** right off!!’)

Word got back to Wenger who said, “If I see Gartside I’m going to F*ck him up!” Ok so Wenger didn’t say that but he did say…

“If Gartside can say I am lying I am ready to confront him. The truth is that we never speak about our negotiations.

“If a club doesn’t want to sell a player it can keep him.”

Wenger added, as reported in the independent, “You only have to sell the player if you are all right with the price. It is not true. You can believe Gartside or you can believe me. It’s not right. It’s not the truth.”

Asked about if the bid was low Wenger replied, “you know me well.” And also when speaking of transfer fee amounts Wenger told the press, “It’s a secret”!

Ok, so atrocious is possibly a bit strong but I am really getting tired of Bolton fans (of which I am one) continually telling me how impressive Kevin Davies has been recently. For example, today at the game (Bolton 2 Man City 3) I was becoming increasingly frustrated with Davies’ silly and persistent errors and logged in to Burnden Aces Forum to find the same old faces banging on about “Super Kevin Davies” and how “superb” he was today!

I invite all Manchester City fans, as neutrals of course, to leave a comment on what they think of Kevin Davies and whether they felt there was any real threat going forward from the Bolton strike force today at the Reebok. I can’t believe that in this day and age in the Premiership such poor performances from strikers are being praised and labelled “superb” and “outstanding” from some fans. What planet are these people on?

Once again Kevin Davies could have easily been shown a red card but managed somehow to get away with it. He seems to come close to seriously injuring a couple of players in every game and it’s only a matter of time in my opinion before he goes too far and snaps off an unwitting player’s leg. I’m pretty sure that today against City he gave away two free kicks inside the opening 20 seconds.

Having said all that, Kevin Davies scored an excellent headed goal to get Bolton back into the game today and give his side a fighting chance. Unfortunately though Davies’ goalscoring ability is far from his strong point and he managed something like 3 goals last season from open play. I don’t see how Bolton can expect to progress in the Premier League while they continue to rely on Kevin Davies as captain and main striker. What makes this even more unbelievable to me is that Bolton fans had a taste of what a real striker could actually do for the club when Daniel Sturridge, on loan from Chelsea, scored 8 goals in 10 starts for the club last season. However, it seems, those fans are backing Davies all the way and it would appear that the King of the numpties can do no wrong at the Reebok.

So what is my beef with “S”KD?

He fell over the ball. Davies went down like a sack of overpaid spuds so many times I didn’t have enough fingers and toes! We had no way of penetrating them in the main and it showed (backed up by the stats too). He went to the floor a thousand times looking for fouls simply because he couldnt compete. He dillied and dallied on the ball as the fans urged him to shoot in the second half before he poked the ball straight to a city defender. He misplaced passes and got lucky with several that will go down as successful ones. He could not beat a player. He didnt have the pace to keep up. There was no option for a pass so many times for our midfielders because he was taking up the wrong positions. And there was no option to slide him a through ball because we know he cant get there through lack of pace. He fouled constantly. And to top it all off he kept moaning at the other players when they tried to pass it into feet – he kept gesturing, “should have hit it over the top”! No thank you Kevin.

And to all the “flick on” lovers. Yes, I saw Davies win a couple of headers. He even did one or two good passes. But to head the ball to nobody or to continually mis-control it and to constantly fail at the most simple of footballing tasks just irritates me to the point that I can no longer bare it. For the number of superb things Davies does in a game there are a whole raft of errors that far outweigh his usefulness in my eyes.

Davies wins the odd header and puts in the odd slide tackle, which Bolton fans seem to think is great, he even scores a couple of goals per season and can score 5 out of 6 penalties. If that’s what we want from a striker then we already have what we need and Owen Coyle may as well put away the cheque book now.

If that is what passes for a superb striker these days then I may as well give up watching.

Gary Cahill Is Fantastic

Gary Cahill is one of those players that has stood out from the moment we signed him. Even in the dark days under the ginger one. I for one will be sorry to see him go.

Today against a good City side Cahill didn’t really put a foot wrong. He put his foot through the ball at the right time, he was composed when needed and, although shorter, he was head and shoulders above Zat Knight in defence. Cahill is not without fault, he makes mistakes like any other player but his defensive qualities are there for all to see and Bolton will rue the day that he is out of their line up.
I certainly will not be looking forward to the coming games if Cahill departs for pastures new. I fear for how our fragile defence will cope. Robinson is slow. Alsonso is partial to drink driving, Knight is a liability, Wheater is just f’ugly and Steinsson spends too much time trying to figure out what is written on his arms. Cahill was one of the stand out performers today against Manchester City and I bet even the most ardent Kevin Davies fan will have been filled with a little extra hope when they saw Cahill take up a striking role for the last 25 seconds of the game.

Unfortunately it would make almost no sense for Bolton to hold on to a player who could go on a free at the end of the season if they can cash in on him big in the next week. I think Cahill should be on his way although part of me seems to think a deal is not going to happen in this transfer window. I think our rivals are going to follow a more recent inner city trend and go for the looting option next summer or kick our doors in come January. So until then, at least we get a little more Cahill for our money.